


Warm As Ice

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Fluff, Ice Skating, Valentine's Day, Yu-Gi-Oh Season Zero, if ygo was a shōjo manga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: In which Anzu feels bullied into buying her friends Valentine’s chocolate, and none of the boys know how to ice skate.
Relationships: Mazaki Anzu | Tea Gardner/Nosaka Miho
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	Warm As Ice

Jounouchi had started back in January, pestering Anzu between classes and after school and after shifts at Burger World - anytime anything remotely related to love or chocolate or shopping came up. And Anzu had been so irritated by the end of it, she’d snarled anytime he brought it up.

It wasn’t really fair, was it – that girls had to fork over a bunch of money out of obligation, to buy chocolates out of obligation, and all for what would amount to no more than a bag of marshmallows in March? Assuming that Jounouchi and the others didn’t forget to return the favour.

But in the end, Anzu had caved. Or, rather, she did what she’d always been planning to do, even without Jounouchi’s infernal whining. She took far too much of her meagre wages from Burger World, money out of her fund for dance school, and went to the Valentine’s display at the department store. She bought five chocolate hearts. Not quite large or fancy enough to be mistaken for anything that meant anything, but not small enough to seem cheap.

Yuugi blushed terrifically when she handed his to him.

Honda seemed surprised, but managed to thank her politely after a few false starts.

Jounouchi let out an ugly little set of manic giggles when she forked his over.

“It’s just obligation chocolate! Ob-li-ga-tion!” she asserted furiously.

“Sure thing, Anzu.” Jounouchi smirked. “Even the one you gave Yuugi?”

She slapped him in the face and stormed away.

Anzu couldn’t give Bakura his Valentine’s chocolate, as he hadn’t shown up to school that day.

Anzu hoped he was feeling okay, but somehow doubted that illness was the reason for his absence. His desk cubby was overflowing with presents and sweets the other girls had stuffed there. She didn’t really understand how so many of them liked Bakura without knowing anything about him at all. It felt like the other girls in her class were all in on a joke she didn’t understand. And Anzu tumbled it over in her head, trying to shape it into something that felt more like judgement and less like alienation.

She thought Miho had it all figured out. Miho had bought two bags of individually wrapped Kit Kat mini bars to school and passed them out every boy in their class. “Maximising my returns for White Day,” Miho had whispered to Anzu under her breath. Not that it stopped Honda from cooing over the tiny square of chocolate like it was the largest box in the department display or the most intimate and personal of homemade gifts.

Miho sat - third row, second column from top left - eating the leftovers Kit Kats from her second bag and leaving a little trail of little red wrappers across her desk.

“I got you one, too,” Anzu said, trying to offer the chocolate heart casually. She felt odd and looming, peering down too close to Miho within the narrow aisles of the classroom.

Miho’s eyes widened, and her cheeks bulged around a mouthful of Kit Kat.

“It’s just- I got them for all the rest of my friends,” Anzu hurried to clarify. “So it didn’t feel right not to get one for you.”

Miho swallowed hastily. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Anzu.” She hurried to accept the heart, and then reached into her Kit Kat bag and grabbed a handful of mini bars. She shoved them into Anzu’s hand. “You can have extra. You’re my favourite, after all.”

If Anzu had had the blind optimism to hope that would be the end of that, she would have been wrong. At the end of the school day, Anzu’s hearts and Miho’s Kit Kats were the only chocolate that any of the boys had received. And Jounouchi certainly wasn’t going to let that lie.

“There just ain’t words for how depressing it is,” Jounouchi grumbled. “The whole day, and nothing to show for it except a couple of gifts from the two girls who _had_ to give us something.”

“Don’t treat Miho’s chocolate so cheaply,” Honda said through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t get anything last year, or the year before,” Yuugi offered. “So I’m happy with this. It means a lot that I have friends who took the time to think of me today.”

They were both drowned out by Anzu’s terrific yell. “I didn’t _have_ to give you anything, Jounouchi! Why did you bother me about this for a month nonstop if you weren’t even going to be grateful after the fact?! Why did I even bother?!”

Miho laid a soothing hand across her arm. “You and Jounouchi don’t have part time work today, do you? Why don’t we all go do something to take the edge off? Miho’s been wanting to visit the ice rink that just opened.”

Yuugi said that sounded like a good idea, and Honda was ready to agree with anything Miho said, which meant Jounouchi was outvoted in spite of any reservations he might have had.

Anzu didn’t realise how pertinent those reservations were, until she watched Honda and Jounouchi hop around on their ice skates. She was weaving up the laces on her own rented skates, and it wasn’t long before she watched them unbalance themselves and slam sideways into the shoe cubbies.

And this was when they were all on firm ground.

The wall surrounding the ice rink was covered in banners repeating the blue KC logo. There was a statue of the Blue Eyes White Dragon leaning over the rink, wrapped up in red stringed paper hearts. The square block that was sectioned off to hold the outdoor ice rink was surrounded by skyscrapers covered in screens of Kaiba Seto’s face.

“Fuckin’ prick,” Jounouchi said.

Anzu admired Jounouchi’s conviction in a way. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Kaiba Seto, after everything. But he put together a nice enough ice rink.

Anzu went out onto the ice first. Her parents had taken her skating a lot as a kid. They didn’t take her anymore, but she still remembered how it went.

Miho was out on the ice next, bundled in a thick coat and mittens. She made Anzu feel underdressed in just a long sleeved shirt and skirt and leggings.

“Fuckin’ prick,” Jounouchi repeated. His eyes were up on the sky, and not down on the ground. So, naturally, he took one step out onto the ice and promptly slip-slided down. He caught the fall on his shoulder.

Yuugi was clearly frightened. He was inching along the edge of the rink on wobbly legs.

Jounouchi pushed himself back up and slid a little unsteadily over to him. “C’mon, Yuugi, falling isn’t that scary. You got this.” He pried Yuugi’s hands off the wall and pulled him out into the centre of the rink.

Where Honda promptly whipped by on legs spread too far apart, and careened into them.

They collapsed in a pile and, lying on the ice, Jounouchi immediately wrestled Honda into a headlock.

“Honda, you jackass! You did that on purpose!” he accused.

“Not everything’s about you, dickwad,” Honda protested, as he elbowed Jounouchi in the ribs.

The skating rink was full of couples out for Valentine’s –couples now faced with the indignity of trying to circle around the pile of teenage boys wrestling on the ice.

“Honda! Jounouchi!” Anzu barked back at them. “No roughhousing on the ice!”

Miho slid up, took Anzu by the arm, and pressed her forward counterclockwise around the rink. “Just act like you don’t know them, Anzu.”

Anzu huffed. But as dissatisfied as she felt, she let Miho guide her forward.

Miho seemed to pick up on something. “It’s just their way of having fun,” she explained.

Anzu glanced back. Even Yuugi was laughing, sitting with splayed legs on the ice.

Anzu turned forward. “They’re going to get in trouble,” she sulked.

“Then they get in trouble.” Miho shrugged. “It doesn’t have to have anything to do with you.”

“I hate feeling like I have to be their mom or something,” Anzu scowled.

“Then don’t,” Miho said.

She pulled ahead and turned back to face Anzu, face challenging and inviting as she skated backwards on the ice. Anzu watched the way her ankles turned as she drew her feet back.

“You’re really good at this,” Anzu said.

“Thanks!” Miho beamed. “I practiced!”

Anzu exhaled a deeply and lengthened her stride. “You make it all sound so easy.”

“But it is that easy,” Miho protested. “Isn’t it the same with dancing? You get better at it the more you practice.”

“I wasn’t talking about the ice skating.”

Miho’s lips pursed in a pretty round- “Oh,” she said. She slowed a bit, and turned back around to skate by Anzu’s side. “Do you really think it’s that easy for me?”

Anzu shrugged. “I don’t know.” It was certainly how it seemed sometimes, though.

“Well, Miho tries her best,” Miho beamed. “Even when it’s difficult.”

This was why the others called her simple-minded. But, in that moment, it almost seemed wise. Miho was-

Anzu looked down, back to Miho’s ankles, and let her eyes trace. Miho’s grey stockings had a snowflake pattern, and Anzu followed that pattern up her legs.

“It seemed worth it,” Miho said, “when Honda got me that D-Shock watch… Boys aren’t too bad. So it’ll probably feel worth it when White Day rolls around. For you too, I hope.”

Anzu slowed to a stop against the wall of the ice rink. “It felt worth it already. I’m glad I got you a chocolate. You’re special – my one female friend.”

Miho had slid to a stop as well. She stood next to Anzu, away from the wall.

They were a roadblock. The other pairs circling the outside of the skating rink would have to go around them.

“I mean, that’s not really right,” Anzu admitted, with a sudden terrible surge of self-consciousness. “It’s not only because you’re my one female friend. I- That wasn’t just obligation chocolate that I gave you.”

Miho was quiet a moment. Then she tiptoed up on the edge of her skates, the serrated edge of the blade chipping the edge of the ice.

“Aww, Anzu, I told you you were my favourite.” Miho cupped her mittened hand to whisper into Anzu’s ear. “I didn’t give you obligation chocolate either.”


End file.
